i've never had rice-a-roni. my mom was kind-of a food nazi. she wouldn't buy rice-a-roni because she thought it was crap. she wouldn't cook rice because she was a perfectionist in the kitchen and she didn't know how (always said she wanted a rice cooker, 'cause her japanese friend had one, but never bought one). i didn't learn to cook rice until i was in my mid 20s. then i taught my parents.

Well, Shake-n-Bake is just seasoned bread crumbs, so IMO it's no more 'fake' than if you made your own with some old bread or panko. The only drawback I can think of is that they do tend to have a lot of sodium in the mix.

We have it quite often - mostly for the time aspect, but it is easy to dress up. We like to use the italian one and put on pasta sauce and mozzarella cheese for a quick chicken parm.